Chapter 1 As If a Meteor Had Fallen

As if a meteor had fallen to the Earth's surface,

The obsidian mech, clutching the Xin Yuan staff, descended from the sky, crashing into the rock formations on the shore of Yellowstone Lake.

Boom!!!

The rock formations trembled violently, and countless pieces of gravel sprayed out like bullets, instantly tearing apart the US military drones surrounding Yellowstone Lake.

Tens of thousands of tons of soil, still permeated with residual radioactive dust, were overturned by the shockwave of the impact, once again rising high into the sky.

The insectoid civilization once again lost surveillance of the Yellowstone caldera.

Their high-speed reconnaissance drones, deployed in the high altitude, transmitted the final images before being engulfed by the radioactive dust—the soil in the peripheral areas of Yellowstone Park churned violently, as if countless gigantic earth serpents were burrowing beneath.

Those were alchemical arrays.

Li Ang used the rock formations as his canvas, vines imbued with the power of the swamp deity as his ink, and the Xin Yuan staff as his brush, adding the final touch to this gigantic alchemical array.

Under the effects of the alchemical array,

The force of the obsidian mech slamming down with the Xin Yuan staff was amplified layer by layer, penetrating through the rock formations to the depths of the volcano.

Incalculable amounts of vast energy were precisely released eight kilometers underground, at the edge of the magma reservoir.

The thick rock layers compressed against each other under the force of the impact, colliding in a chain reaction.

Finally—

Tss!

A column of gray gas suddenly rose from the surface of Yellowstone Lake.

Then, a second, a third…

More and more gas columns shot up from beneath the lake's surface, mixed with large amounts of dust, staining the already murky lake water with a layer of dirty black.

Crack, crack—

The lakebed was tearing apart rapidly under the pressure of the gas columns, and large amounts of scorching rocks rapidly shot out from the cracks.

The Yellowstone volcano did not have a clear, independent crater. Centered on Yellowstone Lake, 15 miles east and west, and 50 miles north and south, was all part of the volcanic crater.

The entire Yellowstone Park was a single volcano.

And now, it was gathering its strength.

“No…”

The American insectoid soldiers watching from afar could only feel the ground beneath their feet shaking violently, stirring up dust and gravel.

The surrounding trees rustled and trembled, shaking down countless fallen leaves.

The birds, deer, bears, cattle, and other animals in the forest, as if sensing impending doom, frantically darted out of the mountains, collectively fleeing in the direction away from Yellowstone Lake.

Even the seemingly terrifying, bulletproof Sphinx pit beast retracted its chain mace.

Its two sturdy legs bent deeply, its entire body like a spring, leaping towards the direction of the crater.

It was not a moth drawn to a flame, but following the instinct of creatures to seek advantage and avoid harm, rushing towards the only path to survival—the direction of its master.

Boom!

A massive sound echoed from the bottom of Yellowstone Lake.

Dozens of cracks, centered on Yellowstone Lake, spread and extended in all directions.

The billowing smoke and dust pouring out of the cracks even obscured the mushroom cloud of the nuclear explosion that had not yet completely dissipated.

“Run! Run!”

The US military insectoid soldiers hiding at the edge of the dense forest shuddered, ignoring the crackling communication devices, and scrambled into the vehicles they had arrived in.

“Go, go, go! Drop the weapons! Drive!”

The insectoid officer shouted hoarsely. A total of ten armored vehicles struggled to reverse and turn at the edge of the dense forest, driving down the gravel road towards the foot of the mountain.

The explosion-proof tires spun, crushing yellow soil and gravel.

The armored vehicles continued to accelerate, passing terrified herds of cattle, deer, and brown bears.

The insectoid soldiers in the vehicles saw, through the rearview mirrors, the black smoke columns rising higher and higher in the sky behind them, and the black dots constantly ejected from the columns.

Bang, bang, bang, bang.

A dense sound like hail suddenly rang around the armored vehicles.

Circular ripples rose from the yellow earth.

Was it raining?

One of the insectoid soldiers instinctively poked his head out of the passenger seat.

The next second, his head exploded.

The red and white contents of his brain were swept back into the car by the wind outside, splattering half of the windshield.

Those were… volcanic pumice stones.

The pumice stones, ejected from the lava column through the high-pressure airflow of the volcanic magma channel, were numerous enough to be counted in the “billions”.

They were of various sizes, falling from the sky like raindrops, sprinkling every corner of Yellowstone Park.

The ten armored vehicles were like ten small boats in a vast ocean.

Pumice stones constantly smashed and killed fleeing beasts, dented the roofs of vehicles, shattered explosion-proof glass, and took the lives of the insectoid soldiers in the vehicles.

“O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was cupbearer to the king…”

“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith…’”

An insectoid soldier took out a cross from his chest, reciting the Bible in confusion and panic.

In other circumstances, this behavior would certainly be ridiculed by other comrades—the insectoid civilization was built on the corpses of humans, and only a few ignorant insectoids would continue to believe in the myths written by humans.

But now, there was no laughter in the vehicles.

All the insectoid soldiers gripped everything fixed inside the cars, feeling the bumps of the vehicles, silently watching him clench the holy cross, listening to his messy prayers and the sound of pumice stones falling on the roof.

Would the gods of humans really have mercy on insectoids?

The frequency of the rock layer tremors increased faster and faster, and the falling pumice stones became larger and heavier, dyed with a layer of lava red.

Trees, each several people could encircle, fell and broke as the earth rose and fell.

Armored vehicles constantly failed to dodge, crashed into fallen trees, lost control, and were swallowed by the scorching pumice stones and rolling rock layers falling from behind.

“Faster! Faster!”

The insectoid soldier driving shouted hoarsely.

It frantically spun the steering wheel, maneuvering the vehicle to avoid the trees, passing the vehicles of other comrades in front, doing everything in its power to avoid looking at the smoke and dust getting closer and closer in the rearview mirror.

The exit,

They could already see one side of the Yellowstone Park exit.

Don’t stop,

As long as they could reach that place…

Bang!

A large pumice stone the size of a person hit the front of the vehicle.

The entire vehicle was lifted into the air, spinning in mid-air.

Time seemed to stand still.

The hoarse insectoid driver, the temporarily converted insectoid believer reciting the Bible, and the floating, bewildered insectoid soldiers in the vehicle

Outlined a corner of a photograph called Cataclysm.

The next second,

The vehicle crashed heavily to the ground, along with the insectoids crushed into minced meat inside, completely swallowed by the smoke and dust sweeping in from behind.

————

“…”

London, Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, Washington's underground top-secret air-raid shelters were deathly silent.

All the insectoids were staring blankly at the magnificent scene of the disaster on the screen.

The sky formed by black smoke connected to the clouds, pouring down on the world.

The scalding hot volcanic ash, some like a sandstorm, pushed horizontally with the lava,

Some were swept into the sky and continued to spread.

“Super-Plinian eruption…”

The volcanologist said bitterly, “The worst has happened. This eruption is likely to eject two thousand cubic kilometers of volcanic material. The 90,000 American insectoid residents around Yellowstone will die immediately. Even if they hide in air-raid shelters, it will be useless—

The lava and volcanic ash covering the surface will be several meters, even dozens or hundreds of meters high, enough to prevent them from getting air in the cellars and suffocating to death.

Huge amounts of volcanic ash will shroud the skies over Wyoming in a matter of hours,

And in the next ten hours or so, it will drift to all corners of the United States with the monsoon.

The global climate will also be greatly affected, with temperatures dropping, climate zones changing, old ocean currents disappearing, and new ocean currents forming.

The number of marine and terrestrial species that go extinct will be calculated in the 'tens of thousands'.

Regardless of who wins or loses between those two higher-dimensional beings,

The insectoid civilization, and even the entire Earth's ecosystem, will suffer greatly…”

The volcanologist's eyes were blank, muttering to himself as if in a dream, until a colleague next to him shook him hard, and he slowly came back to his senses.

The disaster had not ended there.

Li Ang's image appeared in the near-Earth orbit monitoring satellite.

He put away the Xin Yuan staff and the heavily damaged obsidian mech, stepped on invisible stairs, and floated above the pitch-black volcanic smoke column, looking up at the vast sky, as if he was looking directly at the monitoring satellite in outer space.

There was no intimidation, no contempt, only a calm and peaceful look in his eyes.

It was like accidentally stepping on an ant on the side of the road.

Whoosh—

Li Ang slowly raised his palm, randomly drawing in the void, and took out a… strange thing.

That thing was indeed very strange, generally spherical, with a diameter of nearly twenty meters.

The surface was multicolored, with a large number of turbid colors, like a painter's abandoned palette.

The orbital monitoring satellite zoomed in and focused, showing clearly that there seemed to be protruding limbs like those of reptiles on the edge of the sphere.

Moreover, Li Ang took out an unremarkable short knife from the void.

【Meng Du (Deadly Poison)】

This weapon, which Li Ang had obtained long ago, appeared in the world once again.

“I wonder, what this world will eventually become…”

Li Ang muttered softly, wielding Meng Du, cutting a deep gash in the circular sphere.

Bang!

Like a balloon filled with air suddenly leaking,

The unknown sphere with a diameter of twenty meters released a large amount of yellow-green smoke, which merged with the rapidly spreading volcanic ash below and drifted away with the wind.

Aim's guess was correct. Li Ang did have multiple doomsday plans.

In addition to 【Pale World】, there was also the sphere in his hand called 【All the Evils of This World】.

For a long time, this sphere had been scarred countless times by the Meng Du short knife.

It contained thousands of known human viruses, which were constantly mutating and evolving into bizarre existences that even Li Ang could not fully understand.

The virus culture sphere called 【All the Evils of This World】 could only maintain its activity under the effect of the bio-blueprint, and now, it was truly releasing its power for the first time.

Tss, tss—

The smoke changed from the initial yellow-green to pink-green, and then to pink, seemingly inexhaustible and inexhaustible.

Li Ang held the All the Evils of This World, which was constantly releasing unknown toxins, in his left hand, put away the Meng Du short knife in his right hand, looked up again at the reconnaissance satellite in the sky, and snapped his fingers.

Plant vines extended from his sleeves, forming huge words around him for the monitoring satellite to photograph.

[Now, I am giving you one last chance]

[Launch intercontinental missiles at your major cities, exterminate 500 million insectoids, and I will leave on my own]

[Countdown, 120 seconds]

The words formed by plant vines constantly changed, eventually turning into a digital countdown.

119,

118,

…

The insectoid decision-makers fell into collective panic. They did not know what the sphere constantly releasing colored gas was, but their instincts told them that

The insectoid civilization was riding on a train to extinction.

“What should we do? Is he telling the truth? Will he really leave?”

“What exactly is that sphere? Why does it look so much like… a person?”

“Should we launch nuclear bombs? Where is Aim? Where is he?”

Discussions and arguments rose and fell.

One of the leaders roared sternly, scolding the insectoids to be quiet, picked up the phone, and dialed the encrypted numbers of the leaders of several other nuclear-armed countries.

“…Is there still no movement from Aim?”

“So, we compromise?”

“I understand. I support it.”

The leader hung up, looked at his subordinates in the underground facility, sighed, and said faintly: “Prepare.

Launch missiles at Africa and South America.

There are no nuclear weapons or dead-hand systems there, that's enough.”

The meeting room fell silent once again. It seemed like only a few seconds had passed, but it felt like a century had passed. Finally, an insectoid woke up and rushed to the phone, sending top-secret instructions to nuclear submarines overseas.

The insectoid civilization could not be destroyed, at least, not completely destroyed.

————

“Sigh…”

On the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, a moss-covered reef slowly opened its eyes.

It was Aim.

The reef contracted, transforming into the shape of a man in a suit.

He slowly exhaled a mouthful of turbid air, and the bubbles slowly rose in the seawater, floating to the surface.

“As expected, I still lost…”

Aim shook his head and sighed. In these few hours, he didn't dare to release any energy to the outside world, didn't dare to carry out any manipulation of the electronic information network that he was best at.

Even now, when Li Ang had clearly released some kind of skill that consumed a lot of energy, he still didn't dare to find him and seize the opportunity to attack.

“It's time to end this.”

Aim stepped on the seabed, his figure darted out of the water, floated into the air, and once again activated the electronic ghost form, connecting to the World Wide Web.

The next second, the nuclear missile silos ready to launch in Europe and America stopped, aborting the launch.

At the edge of Yellowstone Park, a high-speed reconnaissance drone was also taken control of by Aim, quietly extinguishing in the US military's network.

That high-speed reconnaissance drone drove into the scalding volcanic ash. The power Aim remotely granted it allowed it to ignore the scorching hot and heavily radiated ash, slowly driving towards Li Ang's location and stopping one hundred meters in front of Li Ang.

“Finally, we meet, Mr. Li Ang.”

Aim's voice came from the reconnaissance drone, “I concede. You won this game.”

Li Ang slowly turned his head to look at the unmanned reconnaissance drone, his tone still calm, “Who, allowed you to concede?”